mikeh wrote:
Between Phaeded's analysis of what is in the hands, and mine of what the stag means, I think we now have a fairly complete interpretation of the Alessandro Sforza Temperance card. The extinction of the sexual appetite and a longing for God. In Platonic terms (the Symposium), it is the transmutation of vulgar love into celestial love, Aphrodite Pandemos into Aphrodite Uranos, Göttliche Liebe.

This, it seems to me, is especially suitable for a Temperance card that either immediately precedes or follows the Death card, as it seems to relate particularly to old age, and so the soul just before or after death; in the latter case, not only are the bodily appetites extinguished, but the body itself.

.... :-) ... I wonder, what Alessandro Sforza would have said, if he could read this.

"Erotic decks" are quite common in the history of playing cards, though they didn't often survive. That, what we have as Alessandro Sforza Trionfi card fragment (likely modified Charles VI) has more than one "naked body" ...

... and the hand without person holding the cup looks like a masturbating gesture.